Looking at Film from Every Angle
by
Tags:
Every week, we’ll pose a new “five favorites” question. You just list your five favorites that fit in that category (preferably in preference order) and you’re welcome to discuss and debate the selections and see just how much you do or do not have in common with others.
More Oscar themed polls this week with your five favorite Best Picture winners.
Which are your 5 Favorite Best Picture Winners?
1. Casablanca
2. All About Eve
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. Rebecca
5. The Sound of Music
1. The Silence of the Lambs
2. Lawrence of Arabia
3. American Beauty
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
5. Annie Hall
1. Titanic
2. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
3. Driving Miss Daisy
4. The Sound Of Music
5. The Hurt Locker (I haven’t seen it, but I was so so happy it beat the ridiculous Avatar)
favoring a film just because disliking another?….that is ridiculous indeed. ( I am convinced a lot of Academy members voted for Hurt Locker just because they didn´t want Avatar to win)….
by the way…you should see hurt locker. it´s good film (one-sided though), and then you will really find out it´s not an undeserved winner.
I agree Brett, the oscars have 80+ movie winners, You shouldn’t pick one you didn’t saw just because of the hate towards avatar.
I know people that hate a beautiful mind because it won over fellowship of the ring, that’s unfair, although I looovee Peter Jackson’s Masterpiece, A beautiful mind is a deserved winner.
1. The Godfather
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
3. All About Eve
4. Casablanca
5. The Silence of the Lambs
Runners Up I just couldn’t ignore:
Million Dollar Baby
On the Waterfront
It’s hard to narrow these down, but oddly enough, only my #1 and #2 would elicit any kind of mention on a list of my favorite movies.
1. All About Eve
2. The Godfather
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. Annie Hall
5. Casablanca
6. On the Waterfront
7. It Happened One Night
8. Rebecca (oddly enough, it’s underrated now)
9. Unforgiven
10. All Quiet on the Western Front
The Greatest All Time Best Picture Winner is Braveheart. I say this because it is literally the only time since I began watching (which is to say in ’96 when Braveheart won) when a win of that magnitude and surprise meant something to me. It was the best film I had ever seen and its win felt incredible. Imagine a world where Bill Murray won for Lost in Translation, Kate Winslet for Eternal Sunshine…, or Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain. Now, Braveheart sucks. We know this. But I want to mention this so that when I cite my favorite winners, they come from a place of triumph over less hip or artful alternatives. There are some winners that may be better, but these are wins that would elicit a FUCK YEAH!
1. Annie Hall (Woody Allen) – fuck yeah! How awesome is this victory? In addition to George Lucas’ foolishly beloved blockbuster, they had a sensitive personal epic by Fred Zinneman, a ballet drama by Herbert Ross, and another romantic comedy (one as cloying as Woody’s is sharp) by Herbert Ross. With so many alternatives to being correct, the Oscars truly outdid themselves. So awkwardly since the award’s birth has it straddled the line between middlebrow pseudo-elitism and audience pandering. I can’t imagine how pissed middle America must have been to see Woody Allen’s great romantic comedy whup Star Wars. After striking out to Neil Simon at the Golden Globes (ugh), Woody Allen was the comeback kid with his DGA win and the Academy sent a clear message that night that it was possible for a singular vision such as Annie Hall could win. I don’t think a vision as singular has won in the years prior or since. It had to be Jew indeed.
2. Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood) – with A Few Good Men, Howards End, and Scent of a Woman to opt for instead, the Academy chose instead for Eastwood’s meditation on violence, a film that started as a piece of summer entertainment and emerged an artful phenomenon. 1992 was a great year for film, and The Crying Game would have been almost as solid a choice. Unforgiven is ultimately the better film and the Academy saved grace by ignoring Robert Altman. The only time Cahiers and the Academy lined up.
3. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz) – how likely is it that a film without a finished script or even idea for the ending could emerge as the most quoted, beloved screenplay in the history of the WGA? And what are the odds the Academy would have agreed? A film of such populist, propaganda origins (released technically the previous year!), the Academy could have gone for more respectable fare like For Whom the Bell Tolls, In Which We Serve, The Human Comedy, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Song of Bernadette, Watch on the Rhine…but instead they cited perhaps the single coolest Oscar winner ever, a film of attitude that refuses to age.
4. It Happened One Night (Frank Capra) – I’m less sure of how strong the competition was against Capra’s great swift screwball comedy. This is a film that makes damn well sure you know that these two are gonna bang it out. It’s still funny and sexy over seventy years later.
5. The Apartment (Billy Wilder) – again, I’m pretty sure going into the night that The Apartment was a decent bet for the win. But Billy Wilder’s film is a triumph of unconsummated love as testament to personal integrity, and it went up against The Alamo, Sons and Lovers, and The Sundowners and came out looking great, and in black and white for no other reason other than that’s how Wilder rolls.
In no particular order:
-Annie Hall (More traditional fare like Julia or The Turning Point had to be favored to win. But the stodgy AMPAS membership did balk at honoring a Woody Allen film.)
-Midnight Cowboy (Almost everyone expected the far more Academy friendly Butch Cassidy to win and not the gritty and superior film.)
-Casablanca (More “prestigious” films like Song Of Bernadette and “inspirational” films like The Human Comedy were beaten by one of the most entertaining films in history. An example of great cinema made by great artists behind and in front of the camera)
-Amadeus (At the time I was rooting for Places In The Heart and it would have been nice for Lean to end his career with a deserving film getting a BP Oscar. But Amadeus is a glorious example of all of the cinematic arts being used at a high level. The performances, the cinematography, the costumes, the sets, wrapped around a rather offbeat story and lots of the greatest music ever composed. A thrilling experience)
-Titanic (Ditto. I was rooting for L.A. Confidential but Titanic was such a thrilling experience I was able to get over the script.)
1. Casablanca
2. The Apartment
3. West Side Story
4. The Godfather
5. It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night
All About Eve
The Apartment
Terms of Endearment
Silence of the Lambs
again a tough choice….I realized that most of my favorites were just nominees but here my choce of winners (and also part of my favorite movies)
1. Schindler´s List (I remember when I first watched this masterpiece….I couldn´t get the images out of mind. The most impressive film I ever watched )
2. Forrest Gump (Making me happy and embracing life every time I watch it.)
3. Driving Miss Daisy (adorable actors in a touching film)
4. Titanic (a phenomenon….and without a doubt there is nothing to dislike about that film. It has everything an epic needs. I truly love it)
5. Godfather Part I + II ( epic, terrific)
I’m listing my Top 10 because I feel like it.
1. Schindler’s List
2. The Godfather
3. The Godfather, Part II
4. Casablanca
5. All Quiet on the Western Front
6. All About Eve
7. The Lost Weekend
8. On the Waterfront
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
10. It Happened One Night
You’re a Copycat dude jaja
1: Casablanca
2: Gone With The Wind
3: Lawrence Of Arabia
4: Schindler’s List
5: Amadeus
Classic list (1927 – 1980)
Gone with the Wind
All About Eve
Lawrence of Arabia
The Godfather
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Modern List (1980-2009)
Amadeus
Silence of the Lambs
The English Patient
Shakespeare in Love (yeah, I know, I’m alone on this one)
The Return of the King
In chronological order:
All Quiet on the Western Front
How Green Was My Valley
The Best Years of Our Lives
All About Eve
Midnight Cowboy
Search Our Site
Oscar Predictions
Affiliated Sites
Posts by Topic
Oscar Preds (97th)
Archives
Infrequent Updates
Site Updates
Our Team
Login
Register
Contact Us
Leave a Reply to Peter J PatrickCancel reply